The Redneck TellTale Heart
by jwhaler82
Summary: Edgar Allen Poe's classic tale of murder and insanity...dumbed down. One-shot.


A/N: I don't know how I thought this up. I have read the Tell Tale Heart and was recently reading about it, when I thought wouldn't it be funny if the story was retold by rednecks? This story is about Larry, a not-very-smart man who starts working for a rich guy in a trailer park. The old guys devil eye drives him crazy, but Larry thinks he's completely sane. Enjoy!

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Like I said before, I ain't no crazy man.

My story starts at Wild Bill's Big Burgerama. I was fired cuz' I yelled at some of the kids too much. Look, my boss knows that I drink a lotta beer, and that makes me irritable. So some kid squirts ketchup on me, on purpose, I started screaming and shouting obscene things at him, and the next thing I know, I'm bein' hauled outta the joint by Jose, the new griller from Mexico, who don't speak much English.

So I was out of a job and in desperate needa some cash. I got me a younger brother, Bill, to look after. After that head injury at the construction site, he thinks that he's Batman. The doctors don't know when he's gonna be right in the head again. Anyway, Pa died peacefully in his sleep 'bout three years ago. That's more then I can say for the screaming passengers in the back of his bus. As for Ma, well, after Pa died she kinda lost touch with reality. But don't you worry, she's well taken care of. I found her a new little nursing home in Baton Rouge. She's not very sociable, she only talks to me, Larry, her doctor and her doll collection.

So, I'm out of a job and in need of a new one, and that's when Lady Luck decided to grace me with a smile. That was when Moe Bishop came into my life. Moe Bishop was a decent old man. He lived in a trailer park outside of Davenport. He didn't have any family or pets, but he was friendly with almost everyone in the trailer park. He was also a rich man. Apparently, he made a fortune on his inventions, the first electric cooler, a barbecue grill that rotates the food for ya, and a bug zapper that zaps bigger animals. He had close to $5 million dollars in the bank, and about $10,000 stuffed in his mattress. He actually paid me $50 a day to run his errands and do his chores. $50 a day! That's more than I made at the burger joint in a month. He was also a big Dallas Cowboys fan and he was always tryin' to make folks laugh.

Moe was a great man. There was just one thing that I couldn't stand about him, his devil eye. See, Moe lost his right eye back in Nam. After he came back to the States, he romanced a voodoo witch in New Orleans. Supposedly, she gave him some kind of magic eye that gave him X-ray vision and ESPN and stuff like that. I couldn't do anything in that house without the old man seeing me. The other day, I was taking a nap in his bedroom, when he told me to get off his bed, and he was in the basement. I can't get cell phone service in the basement, and his devil eye can see me? And on top of that, the eye just scared the heck outta me! It was bulgin' outta his head! It looked like the sucker was gonna fall right outta his dang skull!

Right then and there, I knew what I had to do. I'm sorry, but Moe's gotta die! Now, how am I gonna "Git-R-Done?" I come up with a bunch of plans, all of which end with Moe using his devil eye to bust me. But then, I get an idea. The old man can't see me if his eye's closed. So, I sneak into his room at night, blind him with a bright light, then bludgeon him to death with a tire iron. It's foolproof.

Monday night, I drove over to his trailer home around nine o'clock. Moe usually watches_Heroes_, then drifts off to sleep. Using my spare key, I sneak in, wearing my black ski mask, and armed with nothing but a John Deere flashlight and my trusty tire iron. Ever so carefully, I push his bedroom door open. I turn on my flashlight and shine it in his face. Just my luck, Moe's out like a light, and his devil eye's sealed up tight. Ah, well, next time. I'll come back tomorrow and kill him then.

For the whole week, I kept sneaking over to Moe's, trying to kill him, but every time I sneak into the room, he's dead to the world (which is not as dead as I'd like), and his eye's closed. But I just keep coming back. Then, on Saturday, I get lucky. As I sit and wait to sneak in on Moe, the neighbor's black cat, Disko, creeps in through the open window. I was a little spooked with I first saw him. In the dark, a kitty cat might as well be a mountain lion. Anyway, my car keys are in my back pocket, and I accidentally sit on 'em. I accidentally hit the "PANIC" button. Just my luck, my truck is parked right outside Moe's bedroom window. The alarm goes off, and Moe sits up in bed, and his arms shoot up in the air. For some strange reason, his heart is beating really fast and really loud. The doctor warned him not to be taking steroids at his age. Now's my chance! I kick the door down, burst into the room and catch Moe completely off guard. "Don't shoot!" he screams. Not thinking, just reacting, I switch on my flashlight and shine it in his open devil eye. "Ah!" he screams, "I'm blind! I'm blind!" As I reach for my trusty tire iron, Moe grasps at his heaving chest. His heart's beating like a blasted, bass drum and he ain't breathing right. After a few minutes, he falls back on the bed. He ain't movin' or breathing, his tongue's hangin' out of his mouth, there's a little bit of drool on his cheek, and both his eyes are staring up at me. I poke him with the tire iron, but Moe doesn't move. Poor man, may he rest in peace. Anyway, back to business. Wonder if I can keep his stereo?

First thing, I close his eyes, and I duct tape the devil eye shut. Skipping over the gory details, I hacked up Moe's body and stashed it under the floorboards in the living room, where I used to hide the beer that I swiped from his fridge. Just as I finish stashing the body and washing the blood off my hands, there's I knock at the door. I open it. It's the cops. They said a neighbor called because they were woke up by the sound of a man screaming, and called the police. "Oh, it was just me," I lied, "I stubbed my toe." They don't seem to be buying it. "Okay, I had a nightmare and then I stubbed my toe." They seemed to believe that. Then, they asked about Moe. "He's out of town right now. He's in Little Rock visiting some friends. I'm watching his trailer while he's away." They ask to come in and look around. I seem to have destroyed all the evidence, so I guess it's okay.

As they search the trailer, I hear a faint thump-thump. I looked around for the source of the noise, but I couldn't find it, at least not without looking like I was hiding something. When they finished searching the trailer, the cops come over and start asking me questions. I don't remember what they asked, I was too busy trying to tune out the thump-thump. It was getting louder.

I couldn't take it anymore. It was right in my ear. The cops said they didn't hear anything. I laughed. How could they not hear it? It was so loud, I'm sure the whole neighborhood could hear it.

"It's driving me crazy!" I bellowed. I pushed past the cops and ran to the hall closet. I grabbed Moe's shotgun and loaded it. I came back into the living room and, in front of the cops, I started shooting the spot where I'd stashed Moe's parts.

"Die, you stupid, beating blood-pump, die!"

I kept shooting the spot, until the beating finally stopped. Ah, peace and quiet at last. I looked up at the cops who were staring at me in shock. "What?" I asked. One pulled out his handcuffs. Ah, dang!

Like I done said before, I ain't no crazy man.


End file.
